Aurora Feint II: The Arena delivers a number of new features, but is it worth …

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Aurora Feint: The Beginning is one of those iPhone games that many of us here at Ars fell in love with almost immediately. It's hard not to: the graphics are lovely, the game play feels like a cross between Tetris and Puzzle Quest, and there have been frequent updates via the App Store that have expanded the game world and backstory. Recently, the latest update to The Beginning announced that Aurora Feint II: The Arena was now available for $7.99 and would feature a slew of new content including multiplayer duels and "ghost play", along with new gameplay features and in-game tools/spells.

$7.99 may seem like a bit much for an iPhone game, especially when the original version of the game is still available for free. But, after having spent a few hours with the puzzle-riffic RPG, it seems safe to say that The Arena is worth the investment. As soon as they start the game up, players can import their characters over from The Beginning, as opposed to just starting over from scratch. The biggest addition to Aurora Feint is the inclusion of multiplayer play, which is immediately apparent as soon as one visits the game's world map. Three new areas have appeared on the chart, each with their own specific function: Town, Tavern, and Arena. Town will bring players to the game's single-player mode which is largely made up of the content from The Beginning, Tavern serves as a chatroom to talk with other players, and the Arena allows players to battle each other... sort of.

The Arena is where most of the new content becomes obvious: players can check their progress in the Records Hall section, receive a bit of a tutorial in the Academy halls, find and duel with other players in the Battlegrounds, and create a "ghost" to do battle against online opponents. The ghosts are actually essential to the online battles, as live matches don't actually happen. Instead, a ghost serves as a recording of a player's actions, which makes it possible to play against them even when the ghost's summoner isn't actually on their iPhone. According to YouWeb, "playing against a ghost is exactly like playing in real-time against a real player, with real-time interaction between challenger and ghost." Summoning a ghost is a minigame unto itself, and the online battles themselves are actually pretty fast-paced.

The other thing that's noticeable about The Arena is that it seems to run smoother and faster than the previous incarnation of the game, as I didn't experience the slowdown I had beforehand when I was playing The Beginning. Overall, Aurora Feint II: The Arena makes an already excellent iPhone game even better, and the multiplayer functions it adds in make the expense seem rather paltry.